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GOOD MORNING

The 9 at 9 Good morning! Here are nine things you want to know as you start your day.

EVERY DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning cup of coffee.

1. #CASTRO: Ariel Castro, the man sentenced to life in prison for holding three young women captive and raping them for a decade, has been found dead in his prison cell. It is believed that he took his own life.

2. #DOCTORS: Representatives for the Irish Medical Organisation are to meet with the HSE today after it was announced that junior doctors plan to strike in a few weeks. The IMO said that the purpose of the meeting is to discuss issues around contingency plans in the case of strikes.

3. #CLASS SIZES: Nearly a quarter of primary school children were in classes of 30 or more pupils during the last school year. New data from the Department of Education shows that the average class size was just under 25 pupils in 2012/2013.

4. #GOLAN HEIGHTS: The first Irish troops are being deployed to the Golan Heights in Syria today to join the United Nations Disengagement Observer Forces mission. Ireland is sending 12 officers and 103 soldiers to participate in the mission and cater for reinforcement, escort and other operations.

5. #POLITICIANS’ PAY: Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty has claimed in an interview with TheJournal.ie that most TDs, ministers, junior ministers and ‘position-holders’ in the Dáil use money that he and other deputies from his party do not take home to “buy a new car, go on holiday, put it in the bank” or buy shares in that bank.

6. #BOSTON: The lawyer for Irish nanny Aisling Brady in Boston, accused of beating the infant in her care to death, has asked that the case against the woman should be dropped. Melinda Thompson said that the prosecution has presented false evidence to the grand jury in order to obtain an indictment, the Boston Globe reports.

7. #SYRIA: Russian President Vladamir Putin has warned the West against taking one-sided action in Syria but also said that he doesn’t exclude” supporting a UN resolution on punitive military strikes if it is proved that Damascus used chemical weapons on its own people.

8. #PORN: Official records from the British Houses of Parliament for the last year show that more than 300,000 attempts were made to access pornographic websites at computers there, the Huffington Post UK reports. It is unclear whether MPs, Peers of other staff are responsible.

9. #TALL DARK AND HANDSOME: Researchers in England and Australia have confirmed that the average height of European men increased by 11 centimetres between the mid 1800s and 1980. Their study also revealed that – surprisingly – the average height of men also accelerated during the period spanning the two World Wards and the Great Depression.

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